Top officials close to the ongoing negotiations said India and Russia are close to signing an agreement for long-term supplies of uranium to a nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. The two sides are finetuning the deal just ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to Russia in five years for talks with President Vladimir Putin. The trip will restore their bilateral relationship and secure strategic deals.
A potential uranium supply pact is going to be an integral part of India’s efforts at increasing its nuclear energy capacity. This becomes especially true in light of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, which already has two operational units with ongoing construction for units 3 through 6. The new agreement with Russia would mean an uninterrupted supply of uranium, sorely needed for the plant’s running.
Apart from the uranium pact, India and Russia will ink an agreement allowing the militaries to use each other’s facilities to carry out training, port calls, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations. Viewed in a strategic frame, the latter is seen as working toward boosting their operational immersion, with an eye on mutual interests in the Indian Ocean and the Arctic.
Details of the uranium supply agreement have yet not been revealed by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. Similarly, there was no word from the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom and the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
The global drive for nuclear energy as a low-carbon power source has pushed uranium prices threefold since the end of 2020. Bloomberg Intelligence said the uranium market would stay tight until 2029 as utilities restock inventories. This civilian nuclear cooperation between India and Russia was kept out of the ambit of US sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
It was reiterated by the Foreign Secretary of India, Vinay Kwatra, that Russia continued to be an important partner to India in sectors like energy security and defense. Rosatom—a Russian nuclear energy giant—had supplied nuclear fuel to Kudankulam in 2022 and 2023. Domestic production is mainly from uranium mines of the Uranium Corporation of India in Jharkhand, and these reserves are also depleting. Efforts to exploit deposits in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya have fallen short of expectations, making it essential for imports to form a part of the nuclear fuel supply in India.
India has been taking uranium through spot deals from countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia, France, Uzbekistan, and Canada. This kind of contract will bring more stability and security in the supply line to the Indian nuclear energy sector as compared with what has been provided by Russia’s long-term agreement.
This fuels the exchange of military interdependence, including the supply of fuel and spare parts for Russian warships in the Indian Ocean and Indian vessels in the Arctic, spurring to life the melting of ice caps as new shipping routes open up. The agreement is sentimental to boost operational readiness and logistic support between both nations’ naval forces.
The visit, coupled with the resulting agreements, has turned out to be cheerleaders for the strategic partnership between India and Russia. The two long-term pacts—the uranium supply pact and the military cooperation—signed by the duo are expected to firm up their bilateral relations further and help India meet its rising energy and defence needs.